Ankh was tired. Truth is, they miss bottling the piss. It's a good, honest trade. But it's hard being away from the family for so long. The kids were starting ask why they didn't go to work in the morning anymore.

And it'd been so long since they'd all gone to the malt shop.

One little treat would put their minds at ease.

On the way home from the picket line, Ankh stopped in at the malt shop and bought a soda straight from the fountain for each of the boys. Coca-cola, twice over. Had to get the same, had to get them absolutely equal and identical, so they wouldn't give each other the business over one getting a little more than the other.

Yes, that was the way, Ankh thought, never noticing the blackmailers who'd been tailing for two blocks until they were right up upon him.

"We hear you're a Reds fan."

"Did you enjoy the all-star game this year? The whole lineup got voted in as starters."

"Sure was pretty nifty how that happened, wasn't it?"

"Gus Bell over Willie Mays? Go soak your head!"

"We know you organized that ballot stuffing effort back in Cincinnati. Sure would be a shame if people found out about that..."

galactagogue wrote:i usually just assume no one is into me, it makes it easier to be myself.

Suspension Bridge wrote:Werewolf was the best thing to happen to me in 2015 and that includes my wedding

bill wrote:every hooker deserves an Oscar for faking orgasms i swear to god

Also note that the Reds were renamed "Redlegs" during this period and, yes, it was due to the Communist-phobia of the time.

When fan voting to determine the game's starters was completed, seven Cincinnati Redlegs players (Ed Bailey, Johnny Temple, Roy McMillan, Don Hoak, Frank Robinson, Gus Bell and Wally Post) had been elected to start in the All-Star Game; the only non-Redleg elected to start for the National League was St. Louis Cardinal first baseman Stan Musial. Most baseball observers agreed that while the Redlegs were known to be a great offensive team with many outstanding position players, they did not deserve seven starters in the All-Star Game.

An investigation launched by Commissioner Ford Frick found that over half of the ballots cast came from Cincinnati, with the Cincinnati Enquirer printing up pre-marked ballots and distributing them with the Sunday edition of the newspaper to make it easy for Redlegs fans to vote often for their favorite players, while stories emerged of bars in Cincinnati refusing to serve alcohol to customers until they filled out a ballot.

Frick appointed Willie Mays of the New York Giants and Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves to substitute for Bell and Post, and to strip the fans of their voting rights; Bell was kept as a reserve, while Post was injured and would have been unable to play in any event. Managers, players, and coaches picked the entire team until 1970, when the vote returned to the fans, and to avoid a repeat of this incident, MLB officials evenly distributed the 26 million ballots to 75,000 retail outlets and 150 minor and major league stadiums, while a special panel was also created to review the voting.

Last edited by VHB on Wed Apr 20, 2016 11:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

galactagogue wrote:i usually just assume no one is into me, it makes it easier to be myself.

Suspension Bridge wrote:Werewolf was the best thing to happen to me in 2015 and that includes my wedding

bill wrote:every hooker deserves an Oscar for faking orgasms i swear to god

In every one of the most likely scab combinations, grammatron is a component.

Before efreet was reported, I felt that the best odds for nailing a scab would be reporting efreet, grammatron, or compatibility mode. Each one has displayed telltale wolf signs throughout the game: efreet's concerned aloofness, grammatron's roleplaying/late-voting indifference, and compatibility mode's blasé-attitude-to-desperate-grasping-at-straws. The revelation of efreet's innocence doesn't make the other two less likely scabs for me (in fact, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it's them working in conjunction), but I now suspect the actual combination is grammatron (the more sus of the two) and one of the current leading figures in town: catullus, stakeout, or kit fox.

After Cat announced in the thread that stakeout and kit are the only players she trusts, my suspicions that the scabs made up two of that trio faded away.

But-- one of them plus grammatron is mighty persuasive. It would explain both the sophistication of the scab's night actions (seasoned veterans) and the best dynamic for the endgame: Keep one scab out front leading the charge, while the other stays out of the way and pulls a goofy roleplay.

Most of my suspicions of ankh faded over the last day as his posts began to seem more and more genuine. This feeling seems to have been shared by the scabs, who took him out for either a) getting too close to the truth or b) a convenient framejob on stakeout and kit fox. If a), then stakeout or kit fox is the remaining scab, and if b), then it's cat.

But in any combination, one of them is grammatron.

If we nab a scab today, the last scab will be forced to narrow the suspect field once more, and (I believe) their identity should come clearer into focus. Otherwise, this game's over.

I recognize I just accused everyone left alive, but hey this is where I'm at. I've backchanneled with exactly no one over the course of this entire game. No one has reached out to me, and I've reached out to no one. Thus, I'm working entirely with what I'm reading in the thread, so if I'm missing any key information, well, I'd love to hear it.

stakeout wrote:Ronnie's been coasting the last few votes. He's been piggybacking on someone and has been playing the aw shucks shit way too long. Catullus has been included on kitfox and I's convos but has only let him and I come to our own, admittedly wrong conclusions. I don't fucking know anymore.

I was wrong about phillippe and efreet too. IDK, I'm not sure anymore. We have gramma, compatibility mode, ampersand, you, me, kit fox. Of those, gramma and cm are my top suspects. But we also only have one shot here. This sucks.

opi wrote:like i don't think it's possible for catullus to be duplicitous, whereas pretty much every other poster at the time struck me as having one foot in shinra

Ronnie can't believe the run of bad luck he's had. Not one day after recovering from the tuna salad incident, he hears over the radio that there's a salmonella outbreak linked to jars of peanut butter. His stomach is gurgling already. And then, if that wasn't bad enough, his union brothers appear to be turning on him. Imagine, Ronnie Balloon, loyal union member for nigh on a decade now, a scab! It's preposterous if you ask Ronnie. He wants nothing more than to work side by side in the piss factory with his brothers- and sisters-in-piss, for a reasonable damn wage and maybe a day off every now and then. Is that too much to ask?

Meanwhile, compatibility mode is playing very scabby, lashing out at people who vote for him, pulling the "oh sorry, haven't really been paying attention" nonsense, throwing in votes late in the cycle when it's safe to do so, and, of course, going after simple ol' Ronnie Balloon, as if it's still fashionable to kill grammatron for no reason. Ronnie's feeling dizzy. He wonders what the hell all that stuff he was just thinking about means and where it came from. Must'a been the peanut butter.

"Ronnie! Come out of the bathroom! I know you're in there! Don't think you can hide from me! This is your union representative!"

Ronnie remains in the bathroom, still attempting to recover from the last sandwich he ate.

"WE'VE HAD A VOTE AND YOU'RE OUT!"

*FLUSH*

"DID YOU HEAR ME?"

*FLUSH*

"QUIT DOING THAT WHEN I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU!"

"I DON'T HAVE A CHOICE AT THIS MOMENT, SIR!"

"NEITHER DO I! YOU'RE OUT OF THE UNION!"

*FLUSH*

Ronnie finally emerges.

"Well, at least I still have the Screen Actor's Guild."

GRAMMATRON was kicked out of the union. He was an ordinary factory worker. He was also the (deliberately?) ineffective president of another union, the Screen Actor's Guild. He would go on to not only lead it to ruin, but also the state of California as its governor and later on the whole country as President, until Ronnie was kidnapped by ninjas. There were no dudes Bad Enough to rescue him. As you might have guessed, his real last name was not "Balloon".

galactagogue wrote:i usually just assume no one is into me, it makes it easier to be myself.

Suspension Bridge wrote:Werewolf was the best thing to happen to me in 2015 and that includes my wedding

bill wrote:every hooker deserves an Oscar for faking orgasms i swear to god

Honestly it was pretty chill though, so thanks for that snatch. VHB, your lore was dope. The simpleness of this one made it nice. Plainman, sorry we let you down, but good job getting a scab immediately.

opi wrote:like i don't think it's possible for catullus to be duplicitous, whereas pretty much every other poster at the time struck me as having one foot in shinra